The advent of online content has provided businesses and advertising agencies with a multitude of new opportunities to reach potential customers with advertising. Such companies have typically tried to adapt traditional methods of advertising to the online environment. Thus online advertisements resemble billboards, newspaper or magazine ads, and radio and television ads. Furthermore, online content has adapted its presentation to accommodate such advertisements, thereby creating a defacto standard.
For example, online newspaper content is typically formatted to accommodate an advertisement having a standard shape and size (e.g., a banner ad). In this way companies and advertising agencies can maximize the return on their investment in creating an ad by ensuring that the standard size and shape ad can be placed with multiplier suppliers of online content.
A further category of online advertisement is the “pop-up” ad (i.e., an advertisement that opens in a new web browser window). For example, when a user visits a certain web-page, a new browse window will open and display an advertisement on top of the content of the visited webpage. Thus, the pop-up ad typically obstructs the user's display of the online content being viewed and disrupts the user's experience and interaction with that content.
Advertisements can be static and non-interactive such that viewing the advertisement provides the viewer with additional details regarding the service or product advertised, or creates an impression on the viewer in an effort to associate a positive opinion with the advertised product in the viewer's mind. Alternatively, because online content can link from one source to another (e.g., by hyperlink), advertisers can embed or display ads in online content that link to a provider of the advertised product or service.
Various revenue models have been developed and are used in association with advertising in online content. For example, a Pay-per-Impression model, (i.e., Cost-per-Thousand), the advertiser pays for the exposure of their message to a user. In a Pay-per-Click model, an advertiser pays the content provider for each time a user clicks on the advertiser's advertisement and is redirected to the advertiser's website. In a further example, in a Pay-Per-Action model, the advertiser only pays the online content provider when a user follows the advertisement link and completes a transaction with the advertiser (e.g., purchases an item or registers with a website).
In the increasingly competitive advertising market, advertisers have employed various methods to entice the user and capture the user's attention. These methods include the addition of graphics, animation and audio content. Some advertisers include miniature games or trivia questions to grab the user's attention.
Advertisers also target the advertisement to the viewer of the online content, such that the advertisement is more likely to concern a product that would interest the viewer. Targeting can be accomplished in several ways. One possibility is to gather information regarding the user's preferences through a questionnaire or user profile that is established by the user when accessing or registering for the online site. These preferences are used to determine the types of products and services in which the user might be interested and serve advertisements directed to those products and services to the user. Alternatively, advertisers can attempt to determine the services and products the user might be interested in based on the content of the online site. For example, if the user is viewing a web page for viewing stereo components the advertiser may present an advertisement directed towards a specific speaker manufacturer or an online music store.
In addition, to the online print-type media discussed above, advertisers are also expanding targeted advertisements into online media, including games, music and video. Demographics are typically used to target the advertisements to the particular media based on research into the preferences of users who consume such media. However, interaction with the advertisement is typically disruptive to the online experience that the user. For example, a user may be required to watch a video advertisement before being presented with the video desired. Similarly, and as used by broadcast radio, audio advertisements can be inserted before, after, or during the presentation of audio media.
Thus, traditional methods of online advertising and targeting are disruptive to the user's online experience and interaction with the content. What is needed in the art is a way to integrate advertisements into online content seamlessly without disrupting the user's online experience, and preferably augmenting the user's experience. Further, interaction with online advertisements should preferably provide feedback that is integrated into the online experience.